› added 11 years ago

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TIL Jesse Owens, 4 time Gold Medalist at the 1936 Berlin Olympics was not invited to the White House by FDR after winning them. He said this about not being invited, “Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”

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DQPg TIL John McCain, while captured by the Vietnamese, was forced to give the names of his fellow pilots or they would kill him. Instead, he gave the names of the 1961 Green Bay Packers offensive line
ZnRa TIL that Michael Caine started acting because the drama classes were full of pretty girls and he wanted to get laid
5Y7nn TIL it's a myth that you should fully discharge your cell phone/laptop batteries before charging - it's a holdover from the Ni-Cad chemistry era and its "memory effect", but lithium-ion batteries are at their healthiest when you use very little and charge very often
DvPY TIL Bayer sold a medicine tainted with HIV. Once it was discovered in the US, they continued to sell it overseas for over a year in order to clear stock.
OoA9a TIL about a man that taught himself how to pick the "unpickable" lock boxes of pay phones. He stole an estimated $500,000 in quarters from phones in 30 states, taunted the FBI, and was featured on America's Most Wanted twice. After getting caught, he had to pay back $800.